1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a gas generator and ignitor for providing a high pressure hot gas source to power a turbopump assembly of a rocket engine.
2. Prior Art
Gas generator/ignitor assemblies are used to provide hot gases to rotatably drive the turbopumps of a rocket engine. The known assemblies are very complex and require many parts. A preburner, which is a device similar to a gas generator, generates the hot gasses necessary to drive the turbopumps in, for example, the main engine of the space shuttle or Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). The SSME has two such preburners which operate at very high pressures and temperatures. One of the preburners is for the fuel and the other for the liquid oxygen oxidizer (LOX). A gas generator and ignitor assembly may comprise an injector and a combustion chamber. In the SSME the fuel preburner consists of 264 injector elements while the LOX preburner consists of 120 injector elements. Obviously, the complexity of the injectors and the manufacture of the many parts comprising the injectors results in substantial machining of the parts, and other manufacturing and inspection steps resulting in substantial costs. Moreover, many of the existing designs incorporate internal valves to control the flow of propellants to the gas generator thereby resulting in substantially increased complexity and costs. If access to space is to be readily available for commercial payloads, costs must be reduced and controlled.